Give people a choice of routes. A phone number, an email address, a physical or service area, and hours, alongside the form. A form alone reads as a business avoiding contact.

What a form-only page communicates

Not what the business intends. The intent is usually tidiness, or reducing spam, or funnelling enquiries into one system.

What the visitor reads is a business that does not want to be phoned, whose location is unstated, and whose name is unknown.

For a local trade being invited into somebody's home, that is a poor first impression at exactly the moment they are deciding whether to trust you.

People choose their own route

The reason offering several matters.

Some will always phone. Some will never phone. Some want to send a message at eleven at night and get an answer in the morning. Some want to walk in.

Forcing everybody through one route loses whichever group finds that route uncomfortable, and you never learn which.

Offering three costs nothing and lets people use the one they were already going to use.

What belongs on the page

The fourth is the one nobody includes and it does the most for trust. "Ask for Dave" turns an anonymous business into a person.

The spam objection

The usual reason an address is hidden, and worth addressing honestly.

Publishing an address does attract some automated mail. That is true and it is a smaller problem than it was, because filtering has improved substantially.

The trade is a measurable amount of junk against an unmeasurable number of people who wanted to email and did not.

For most small businesses the junk is the cheaper cost. If it genuinely becomes unmanageable, a role address that can be replaced is a better answer than no address at all.

A worked example

A small law practice whose contact page had a form, a postal address, and nothing else.

The reasoning was that phone enquiries interrupted work and most were not viable.

What happened was that people who wanted to speak to somebody before instructing a solicitor, which is most people, went elsewhere. The form produced a low volume of enquiries, all of which were treated as good because there were so few.

Adding a number with stated hours, an email address, and a line naming who answers produced roughly triple the enquiries.

More of them were unsuitable, which was the fear. The absolute number of suitable ones also rose substantially, which was the point.

The practice added one line saying what they did not handle, which removed most of the unsuitable ones without removing the phone number.

The counter-case

Where restricting routes is genuinely right.

A business with more enquiries than capacity, where a form is deliberately a filter and the friction is the point.

A one-person business that cannot answer a phone during the working day and would rather not advertise a number that goes to voicemail every time.

And a business with genuine safety reasons for not publishing a location or a direct line.

In all three the answer is still to explain rather than omit. "We do not take phone enquiries; the form is the fastest route and we reply within a day" is a different message from a page with a form and no explanation.

The address question

Separate from the rest because it has real considerations.

A storefront should publish its address prominently. Somebody looking for a contact page is often looking for directions.

A business working from home should publish the service area rather than the address, which is both a privacy decision and the correct answer for the listing as well.

What does not work is publishing nothing. A business with no stated location at all reads as one that could be anywhere, and for a local trade that is the opposite of the impression you want.

A map, and whether it helps

Worth a thought rather than an automatic inclusion.

For a storefront, a map is useful and worth the space.

For a service business with no premises, an embedded map centred on nothing in particular adds weight to the page and communicates little.

Embedded maps also load third-party code, which slows the page. For a business where the map earns its place that is a fair trade. For one where it is decoration, it is not.

What else the page can do

Since somebody arriving here has intent.

Answer the two or three questions that most often precede contact: whether you cover their area, roughly what things cost, how soon you can come.

Say what happens next after they get in touch, briefly.

And link to your listing, so somebody who wants to check reviews before calling can do so without leaving and searching.

Where else contact details belong

The contact page is not the only place, and treating it as such costs enquiries.

Somebody who has just finished reading a service page should not have to navigate anywhere to make contact. The details belong at the end of that page too.

The same applies to the footer, which appears everywhere and is where a certain kind of visitor looks first.

And the header, for the phone number, on a trade where calls are the main route.

A dedicated contact page is where somebody goes when they have decided to look for one. Most people never do; they use whatever is in front of them.

Checking yours

  1. Open the contact page on a phone.
  2. Count the ways to make contact. One is too few.
  3. Check the number is tappable and correct.
  4. Check the email address is visible, not only in the form.
  5. Check the location is stated in some form.
  6. Ask whether a stranger could tell who they are contacting.

The sixth is the test that matters. A page giving no indication of who is at the other end is asking for trust it has not earned, from somebody who has plenty of alternatives.

How short the form itself should be is covered in how many fields before people give up.

Frequently asked questions

What does a form-only page communicate?

Not tidiness, which is the intent. It reads as a business that does not want to be phoned, whose location is unstated and whose name is unknown.

Why offer several routes?

Some people always phone, some never do, some want to message at night. Forcing everybody through one route loses whichever group finds it uncomfortable.

What belongs on the page?

A tappable number with hours, a visible email address, your location or service area, a name, when to expect a reply, and a short form.

What about spam if I publish an address?

Some junk, and filtering has improved. The trade is measurable junk against an unmeasurable number of people who wanted to email and did not.

Should I publish my address?

A storefront should. A home-based business should publish the service area instead. Publishing nothing reads as a business that could be anywhere.

When is restricting routes right?

When you have more enquiries than capacity and friction is the point, or when you cannot answer a phone. Explain it rather than just omitting the number.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Contact page with a form and nothing else?

Adding a number, an address and a name usually multiplies enquiries, and one line can filter the unsuitable ones.

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